Euripides' Bacchae

 

Briefly, we live, briefly,

then die. Wherefore, I say,

he who hunts a glory, he who tracks

some boundless, superhuman dream,

may lose his harvest here and now

and garner death. Such men are mad.

(Bacchae, 395ff)

 

Attic red-figure vase depicting the sparagmos of Pentheus (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

. .

Euripides

  • youngest of the three great Athenian tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides)
  • died in 406
  • the Bacchae must have been written in the last year of his life; it was produced in Athens posthumously by Euripides' son and won a first prize

Sophocles' Oedipus

  • we concluded discussion of Sophocles' Oedipus the King by asking why Oedipus suffered the misfortune that he did.
  • Sophocles does not parade across the stage the mysterious cosmic forces that compel his heroes; instead we have to ponder the hero's fate. Oedipus is not in control of his destiny; but human insight cannot grasp the forces, symbolized in the oracles, that lead him inexorably to his destiny.
  • The mystery of suffering is emphasized in the way Sophocles opens Oedipus the King: a plague of unknown cause.
  • How then does Euripides open the Bacchae; how will he portray the forces at work in human destiny?

Prologue

  • Dionysos speaks the prologue and announces that he is responsible for the events we are about to witness: he is a wounded, offended god and is about to take revenge. . .

Dionysos invades and possesses the polis

(leads to loss of identity and, eventually, to dismemberment)

  • Dionysos is an ambiguous figure who breaks down all the basic oppositions that structure Greek identity and the social order of the polis:

male
female
Greek
Barbaria

animal

mortal

immortal
culture
nature

  • Dionysos a god of possession, of LOSS OF IDENTITY, which is the essence of madness: invasion by another and loss of identity (nb: female worshipers of Dionysos are called maenads (maddened).
  • CADMUS and TEIRESIAS seem to embody traditional religion; acceptance of human limitation. Or do they?
  • PENTHEUS represents the order of the city; he returns to set to rights "strange mischief" he has heard about; the problem is, in HIS view, "OBSCENE DISORDER." Pentheus proposes to impose the order of the polis (see above) by forcibly restraining the woman and having the stranger's head cut off (note tragic irony here).
  • Pentheus and Dionysos face off: Dionysos is cool, calculating, cruel; Pentheus is aggressive, asserting his masculinity and authority, show of military force (utterly incomprehending of the nature of the force he opposes; Dionysos says as much).

Dionysos invades and possesses Pentheus

(leads to loss of identity and dismemberment)

  • Dionysos appeals to Pentheus' youthful, prurient curiosity
  • Pentheus is radically feminized, but more than that, he is turned into a worshipper of Dionysos. His complete delusion is both comic and terrifying. The oppositions that order the polis (male/female, human/animal, culture/nature, etc.) are now broken down in Pentheus as well as the city.
  • Dionysos now informs Pentheus that he will suffer for his city: Pentheus is a scape-goat who will die for the wrongs of the city.
  • A messenger reports the ghastly fate of Pentheus: he is torn to pieces by the women; Agave, his mother, enters with his head cradled in her arms (believing she bears a lion's head).

Dionysos ex machina

  • Dionysos appears above the stage to announce the justice of his revenge.

To think about. . .

  • Are you persuaded by Dionysos' "justice"?
  • We, the Athenian audience, have just seen a man in the grips of, manipulated by, and finally destroyed by an utterly potent force. How does this relate to the religious and civic context of the performance we are watching? What are we to think?
<<RETURN TO CALENDAR